I will add this further guys.
I have had a great deal of experience fishing and catching large Browns both in Reservoirs and moving water system, and they do differ big time.
Brown trout in larger bodies of water such as man made or natural lakes, as a rule run shorelines to find food base as they is were it is mostly confined.
Early season they will be found close in, as the water temps rise they move out to deeper water during the day but return to the shallows late evening to dark to feed.
Almost all of the trophy trout l have caught in the lakes in MT have been while shore line fishing, dusk and into dark or early morning.
They may well also be found over shallow zones within that body of water and particularly around moss beds.
During times when climatic conditions cause water temps to rise they may well congregate at given depths within that body of water and remain there till shallow water temps decrease.
Lakes are a continual moving body of water, wind and wave alter dramatically water temperatures into and around shorelines, that in turn also determines food base location that those fish will be found, trout in lakes typically cruise. Here to day, gone to morrow.
Years of fishing lakes/ reservoirs taught me many lessons so far as fish location
Back in the UK we would typically use shooting heads to get a fly down to those depths ,while boat fishing, which could be as much as 100ft, the problem arises when fly fishing at depths like that is to get the fly there to start with and then hooking the fish.
Lead core shooting heads would certainly get you down, but due to the degree of slack, it is almost impossible to set a hook on a fish at that depth.
What we found was depths from say 20 to 50 over depth of water or fishing off bottom structure were way more practical to fish and produce fish.
I might add here that the rods we used were Carp rods. 15ft lead core heads made from Gladding aquasink were dangerous affairs, but you could cast them in the region of 120ft.
If you could not cast the distance then you were not able to fish the depth.
I have had days when we just nailed big fish one after the other, days with not a strike.
In the main large tube flies adorned with long streamer hackles were the ticket, no fancy affairs l can tell you.
There may be other opportune times of the year, as a rule around September when those big fish would be bashing fish fry, that was fun.
If you had any structure man made or natural, you would find the trophy Browns as that also congregated the bait fish.
Rivers are a different deal.
I know for a fact that large Browns will track long distances during the time they are looking for food, here on the White many of those fish can be recognized on a regular basis if you are on the river likewise on a daily basis within the same zones you see them.
I am not suggesting here that you can predict the likely movements of a particular fish on any given day, but there is a pattern of some sort. Given how generation has taken place within a given zone those fish regularly frequent.
Almost all my large trophy Browns have been caught very close to shore lines, fish over 8lb and way more, either early morning or dusk and into dark, which are by majority the prime times those fish feed and are vulnerable to being taken on a fly.
The exception may be when we see a Shad kill, at that time those fish can be caught at any time, and more so if you are on the water when the shad start to show up.
If there was any good tip l would offer it would be this.
If you wish to nail the big guys, forget about the small ones, trophy trout fishing is a very different deal as you will suffer many zero days out there.
The next tip l will give you is to fish large flies, 4 to 6ins.
I do not agree that large trout do not use there olfactory senses to locate prey, l know for a fact they do as l have seen them do it many times.
There is no doubt of that. I have seen many times large trout back downstream of a shad fly imitation at the same pace as the fly is moving and refuse it. A natural shad is engulfed in seconds, not only does it look right it also smells right.
I have watched large Browns cruise over very shallow gravel bars and root out crawdads that were buried, l have also seen them root around in moss beds looking for soft shell crawdads they knew were there but were not able to easily locate as soft shell craws do not move.
There is a bait guide here who is just about one of the best when it comes to catching large Browns, fish from 10lb or more on a regular basis. He will tell you end of story that it is the bait he uses that matters.
He knows for a fact that stale bait is more or less worthless, he will also tell you that bait which was not from this river is also of not much worth.
He is convinced of this, and for one would not argue with him. His track record is something else. He collects each day his sculpins and soft shell crawdads, he will not freeze them either, as again he is convinced that this dramatically changes the natural scent of that bait.
He will also tell you that the bait used for a particular fish needs also to come from the zone he knows that fish to reside and not miles up or downstream.
But at the end of the day trophy trout, no different to humans make mistakes at times, that's why l love to fly fish for them. I can suffer the zero days and glorify the days when l catch one, 25lb 6oz so far being the best.
Davy.
